Desperation
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: She paced. Like an animal in a cage, she stalked the perimeter of her cell.


**Desperation**

Rating: PG

Word count: 1,950

Characters: Sharon, Adama

Spoilers: through Resurrection Ship 2

Summary: She paced. Like an animal in a cage, she stalked the perimeter of her cell.

Disclaimer: BSG isn't mine, but that nice Mr. Moore said I could play with his creation, if I want to.

Author's notes: Written before s2.0 began, so it is now 100 percent AU, but still fun for all that. Thank you to ViperPilot101 and Deadskin for the flyby beta.

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She paced. Like an animal in a cage, she stalked the perimeter of her cell.

_It's ironic. They keep me caged like some sort of wild beast and yet they call me a machine_. A smile stole across Sharon's beautiful, all-too-human face, but the expression spoke more of despair than of amusement for even here, in the depths of her prison, she knew that something was happening. Distant alarms still sounded, calling all able bodies to battle stations and she wanted to respond to that alarm with every fiber of her being, but, as always, she had to remind herself that she wasn't one of them, the call to arms wasn't for her.

The worst part of it was knowing that Helo was out there. He was out there in cold, black space with nothing between him and vacuum but the thin skin of a Viper and the even thinner fabric of a flight suit and she was locked up in this cage, waiting, not even the cold comfort of a dradis screen or the reassuring voice of Dee to keep her abreast of what was happening.

And so, she paced and she waited and she suppressed the growing desire to scream with frustration.

With no more warning than the distant klaxons that had sounded for at least fifteen minutes already, one explosion and then another rocked the ship in quick succession. The second was so violent that Sharon was knocked with bruising force into the hard metal wall of her cage. Eyes wide, she ran for the antiquated handset by the door, stumbling as a third explosion slammed through _Galactica_.

_God, those have to be nukes…_

Stabbing at the emergency call button that had been installed not long after Helo was returned from _Pegasus_, she held the handset to her ear. "Come on, come on, pick up…"

After what seemed an eternity but was really only a couple of seconds, a woman's voice answered, her fear evident. "I'm here."

"Private Bonnington? What the frak is going on?" Unable to pace properly because of the short cord, Sharon did the only thing her agitation would allow – she rocked back and forth from one foot to the other. "Bonnington!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're under heavy attack. _Gods_, I think those missiles got _through_." The young Marine sounded like she was suffering from the beginnings of a full-blown panic attack.

Using her best officer's tone, Sharon barked, "Private, get yourself under control."

"Sir."

"They didn't get through, those were near misses. Very near, but still misses." Running a hand through her loose hair, Sharon tried to think of something she could say to get the woman to find out what was really happening. Obviously, they were under attack; she needed to know details if for no other reason than to reassure herself that Helo was still alive. For three such near misses, the humans had to have suffered casualties among the pilots…

She opened her mouth to say something else, but the line in her hand had gone dead. "Dammit!" She slammed the handset back into its cradle and thought about kicking the wall, but decided against it. A bare foot colliding violently with a thick metal wall wasn't such a good idea.

Minutes passed. There was a fourth explosion and the lights flickered in counterpoint to the rocking of the huge battlestar and Sharon thought that this one wasn't a miss, near or otherwise. She tried the call button again, but this time there was no response.

With no real point in suppressing it, Sharon turned her back on the useless device, gave in and screamed out her frustration, arms rigid, hands balled into fists at her sides.

She opened her eyes, surprised, when the door grated open behind her and two Marines entered. She didn't recognize the man who opened the door, but the other was Bonnington and she held in her hands the metal collar and the frakking stick that meant that Sharon was wanted in another part of the ship.

"Admiral Adama wants you in CIC," Bonnington said by way of explanation as she held out the collar. At least she had the grace to look apologetic as she reached up to fasten the damned thing around Sharon's throat.

xxx

CIC was a flurry of activity when she entered with her escort – part of that activity was the effort to put out a fire that had started at one of the peripheral control panels, pouring the acrid stench of burned plastic into the air. She paused for just a moment to orient herself and Sharon felt the eyes of every crewman not otherwise occupied, but there was only one man there who mattered. She sought out and found Adama, recently promoted to Admiral.

Their eyes met and Sharon took a step toward him, pulling Bonnington along with her. She wasn't about to wait for an invitation.

"You need me again." A statement, not a question, for the only times she was allowed out of her cage were medical visits that couldn't be taken care of _in_ her cage and when the Old Man needed her for something.

"Yes." As always Adama's expression was unreadable, but there was something in his demeanor that made Sharon think that he was worried, maybe even frightened, and that frightened her.

But that didn't mean she was going to make it easy for him. "Why should I help you?"

The strobing lights reflected oddly on Adama's glasses before he reached up and removed them. He took a step closer. "Because you and I have something in common." Her eyebrows shot up at that. "We neither of us want to lose our only child."

That wasn't at all what Sharon had expected. Her arms came up to cross protectively over her belly, over her child. "What do you mean?" She tried to keep the suspicion and fear from her voice, but she didn't entirely succeed.

The Old Man's expression softened slightly, his eyes on her crossed arms. "I have no choice but to ask you to do something that may risk both your life and that of your child." The muscles in his jaw tightened and relaxed before he continued, and Sharon knew that he found the situation distasteful. Behind him, Tigh issued an order that was relayed to the pilots by Dee, but Sharon paid no heed to anything or anyone but the man in front of her. "Lee had to eject. His Viper is destroyed, but he's still alive."

"Floating in space?" She couldn't imagine anything worse for a pilot than to be in the midst of a battle but without a ship. No way to fight, no way to return home. Nothing but a slow death by eventual asphyxiation.

"Yes. All of our planes are in play. I have a fledgling ECO available, but I need someone whose skills I can trust to fly a Raptor to pick him up."

Sharon shook her head and laughed, the sound bitter. "You're kidding, right?"

"You know better than that."

She did. From her memories of the other Sharon, she did. "Someone whose _skills_ you trust, not someone _you_ trust." Her eyes met his again. "I'll do it, but I want something in return." He raised a brow in question. "I want to see Helo. I want to talk to him face-to-face, no wire mesh, no safety glass, no handset." _I need to know that I'm not losing him because of all that's happened, to him, to me, to us._ But that part, she left unsaid.

"Done. Provided both of you come back today."

Sharon allowed herself a small, genuine smile. "At least I can trust that you're not blowing smoke up my ass," she muttered under her breath.

A snort of laughter, quickly suppressed, told her that he had heard her and she felt heat suffuse her skin. "Private, find Boomer and yourself flight suits and get her to a Raptor."

"Yes, sir."

xxx

Sharon closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of the flight suit, the canned air circulating into her helmet, the glare of the lights in her eyes, the feel of the stick in her gloved hands. _Please, God, help me to do this. Don't let me fail. And please, dear God, keep Helo safe._ Aloud she said, "Rabbit. Are we go for takeoff?"

There was a moment's hesitation as he checked his instrument panels. Sharon well remembered the trepidation of a newly minted officer experiencing her first real mission – or in this case, _his_ first mission. "Y-yeah, Boomer."

"LSO, we are a go for launch," she relayed. Excitement built in her, kept pace with the Raptor's engines as they spooled up toward launch. This mission could be deadly and it was definitely deadly serious, but right now that didn't matter. She wasn't the one who had earned the call sign the Adama and now Rabbit used, but she could still claim it as her own. She was in a Raptor about to take flight and she had won a concession from the Old Man. This could very well be the first step toward making a real place for herself, for her small family, with these humans. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Sharon."

"_Raptor three-two-seven, you are cleared for launch."_

She shot a side-long glance at Private Bonnington in the co-pilot's chair. "You strapped in?" The Marine nodded her assent and Sharon engaged the drive.

There was an instant of disorientation as she picked the huge bird up off the deck, but Boomer's memories, her implanted instincts took over. Sharon straightened the Raptor out and headed her toward the black beyond the open hangar doors, toward the small flashes that indicated explosions, whether from the destruction of human ships and missiles or Cylon, she couldn't tell.

"Rabbit, get a lock on Captain Apollo's locator beacon," she ordered as soon as they were clear of Galactica.

"I have it, Boomer. Bearing three-oh-point-eight."

"Got it. Hang on, we're going in fast." She locked in her course, opened up the throttle.

She couldn't see Apollo through her view screen, but she could see the locator beacon on instruments as the numbers indicating distance ticked down. "Apollo, talk to me. Are you still with us?"

"_What the frak? _Boomer_?"_

"Good to hear your voice, Captain. We'll have you on board just as soon as we can."

She didn't have time to say anything else as a Cylon raider came hurtling at her from out of nowhere, firing.

"Boomer!" Rabbit yelled.

"I see it." She slammed the stick to the right in an evasive maneuver.

"What do I do!"

Before she could answer, a pair of Vipers shot past on either side and caught the raider in a deadly crossfire. It blew apart with a flash of fire and gore and both Vipers flew through the mess on what, at first glance, appeared to be a collision course, but then one of them performed an eye-popping turn and came back toward her.

"_Boomer, we've got your six,"_ came Starbuck's welcome voice over her headset.

The other took a bit more time and used a lot less style to make the turn, but joined the first a couple of seconds later. "_Frak, Sharon. Who're you flying with? Does he know what he's doing?"_ Helo managed to sound anxious and pleased at the same time.

She laughed for the first time in what seemed like years and she would have fallen as her limbs went weak with relief, had she not been strapped into the pilot's seat. "Rabbit's doing just fine, Helo. Don't you worry about us, just keep us clear while we get Apollo inside."


End file.
